As TN schools gear up to reopen, govt plans to monitor long absentees

With schools for the students studying from Class 1 to Class 12 is all set to open across the State from February 1, the Tamil Nadu government has decided to monitor long absentees to bring them back to physical classes.

However, university and college students will not have physical classes and instead, they would be appearing for semester exams online from February 1 to 20.

The School Education Department move to follow absent students came since as per the latest protocol no one should be forced to attend the physical classes.

"Some students might take advantage of the rule and would stay at home for a longer period without attending physical classes", a senior official from the School Education Department told DT Next on Monday.

He said if the students were absent for more than a week from February 1, teachers were instructed to contact the parents and would convince them to send their children to the schools.

"Board exam students will be given priority to attend physical classes without break," he said adding that counselling will be given for students, who are not willing to come to schools to allay their fear and stress.

"The headmasters especially in the government and government-aided schools were instructed to ensure that there should not be a single dropout this year," he said.

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Similarly, the official said there would be parent-teachers meetings on regular basis on the safety aspects and protocol, which would be maintained inside the school premises.

The official also said though the schools have the option to conduct online classes depending on the situation, the management of institutions was instructed to give importance to holding physical classes. He said the common revision tests schedule would be announced soon for the board exam students.

As online semester exams will be conducted for students pursuing Engineering, Polytechnic, Arts, Science, and Vocational courses, the government has decided to conduct physical classes in the colleges soon after the exams.

On the procedure to conduct online exams, a senior official from the Higher Education Department said that question papers will be uploaded sharply by 9.30 pm in the portal of the respective institutions.

"Students will be given one hour to download the question papers", he said adding that if there were any downloading issues due to poor network connection, the students have the option to contact the principal or the authorities concerned in the colleges for seeking help.

The official said unlike last year, students will not be penalized for the delay in downloading the question papers or late in sending the answer scripts to the institution.

"All the professors and staff of the universities and colleges were asked to be present in the institution to guide the students and solve the issues then and there with regard to semester exams".